York's hidden history: A prowl around city cat trail

ARE you a cat-lover? Or, if you’re not, do you know someone who is? Back in the Middle Ages social attitudes were, as they always are, diverse. Cats were commonly kept in order to control the mice and rat population. But they were also seen by some as embodying the dark forces of evil.

And yet, there is evidence that pet cats were constant companions for scholars and status symbols for the wealthy.

But in fact, it wasn’t really until the end of the 19th century that cats were widely kept as domestic pets in England, and not just as ways to keep mice and vermin down.

Nowadays, cats have a special place in the affections of many York people.

Whether you’ve lived here for a long time, are a recent resident or tourist, you need to know that this city is full of cats.

I get frequent feline visitors to my York garden, and although I’m neither unfriendly nor ailurophobic, they always seem to dart for the nearest bush where they can hide before jumping on the wall and making their escape.

And in the city centre there are least 22 cats who are either hidden or at least semi-hidden from view. I searched several times for the cat across the river on the roof of the building opposite the Radisson Hotel in North Street, but neither I nor three of the hotel staff could find it.

And although I was told that there was one perching on a ledge outside The Three Tuns in Coppergate, I only found it when Ellie, one of the bar staff, took me outside the pub and showed it peeping down on me from underneath some scaffolding. The cat doesn’t have a name at present, but Ellie sweetly suggested we could call it David.

Statue of Gerald, the York Minster cat (Image: Supplied)

Many of us spend our time walking along either looking at the ground or at what we can see at eye-level. But some of the rooftops of York contain semi-hidden treasures if we care to raise our eyes and focus on what we see there. I’m talking, of course, about the cats dotted on walls and rooftops around the city. Statues of cats have been placed on buildings around York for about two centuries, and it’s thought there were cat statues even in the Middle Ages.

At present, the 22 sculpted cats dotted around the city have been documented in the form of The York Cat Trail originally set up by John and Jo in 2005. These cats were cast using various materials including gypsum, acrylic resins, and concrete. The York Cat Trail has a website www.catsinyork.com and is now sponsored and managed by Peter and Alison Hanson, owners of The Cat Gallery in Low Petergate, where they offer customers quality gifts for cat lovers.

In the Cat Gallery you’ll find a leaflet designed by Keith Mulhearn where Charlie and Alfie, the Hansons’ own cats, invite you to join the York Cat Trail. In the leaflet there’s a map with the locations of the cats and some notes about each one. The first two cats were placed on a building in Low Ousegate, just before the Ouse Bridge, by retailer Sir Stephen Aitcheson in 1920. Subsequently, local architect Tom Adams, with the help of sculptor Jonathan Newdick, placed a cat on a building in Coney Street he’d designed in the late 1970s. The last cat Tom placed was under the clock on a building in Colliergate.

There’s a curious cat, modelled on a real cat, on a building in Stonegate. This kitty was born without eyelids on one eye and wears an eyepatch to prevent infection. His name is Gordon. Another noteworthy cat is Hope who can be found climbing the wall of a building in Goodramgate. And tucked away in Bartle Garth just off St Andrewgate is the statue of a cat sculpted by Suzie Marsh called Maxim Fishing.

In Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, you can see the sculpture of Gerald, a Bengal cat who once lived near York Minster. When he died in 2020, a crowdfunding campaign led to the commemorative sculpture.

A little further out from the city centre is the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. The theatre commissioned Newdick to create Gus, who was placed in front of their building on the Haxby Road in April 2022.

Other cat places in York are the Cat’s Whiskers, a café in Goodramgate, "where customers can de-stress in the company of some lovely cats". But you must book your slot online giving them plenty of notice about when you want to come.

Inside the Cat's Whiskers in Goodramgate (Image: Supplied)

York Glass Ltd once had premises in the Shambles where it sold its York Lucky Cats in black and the12 jewel-like colours that match the gemstones considered lucky for each month of the year. But the shop closed about a year ago and York Glass has since gone online. Similar products can now be purchased from The Cat Gallery.

When I asked my cat-loving friend Linda Cockburn about her biggest challenge as a contemporary cat-lover she sighed: "All the people who hurt cats, use them for dog fighting, don’t bother to have them neutered, dump them in boxes and carrier bags and unreasonably expect Rescue to take in every single abandoned cat and kitten".

But then Linda doesn’t live in cat-loving York.

David Wilson is a Community writer with The Press